Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series

by Austin Rogers

  Autodrones, Maxwell dispatched to the teams stationed at the riverbed. Then he spoke through comm to the Upraadi captains behind him. “Fire! Fire!”

  A hundred and twenty meters behind the first trench, several hundred Upraadi fighters popped up from another trench, planted glassy, black Carinian assault rifles against the embankment, and fired. Steel rounds zipped through the air. The lancers dashed up, down, left, right—sensors reacting in milliseconds to incoming visuals. Still, some rounds struck, tearing off chunks of wing or sinking into the body.

  Maxwell loaded another mini-rocket into the top chamber of his double-barreled combat rifle. His fellow transapiens launched explosive rounds as fast as they could reload—straight up, letting the mini-rockets’ guidance system finish the work of exploding in the right places. More fiery blasts littered the air overhead, darkening the sky in a veil of smoke. Maxwell fired off a rocket, not even watching it burst as he reloaded. Two and a half seconds, his visual display told him. Too slow. His compatriots were reloading in under two seconds.

  Meanwhile, in the top left corner of his visual field, a digital mini-map of the city center showed his autodrones pitching themselves up from the riverbed in clusters of eight. He hoped the timing would be right.

  The lancers careened over the second trench with another quick swoop, sending down a rain of gunfire. A few dozen Upraadi troopers took shots to the head and collapsed into the trench. Their fire persisted as individuals dropped off. The lancers barraged the defense dishes as they passed. Rounds pelted the outer shielding and punched holes in the smooth inner bowl. Minimal damage. Maxwell had to accept some harm to one row of dishes to execute his plan.

  Sure enough, the lancers sped over the ridgeline toward the palace as his autodrones reached a hundred meters below surface level—the perfect firing distance. Their railgun revolvers spun with blurring speed as tiny slugs spit from the barrels, a hundred a minute, emitting a sound like humming bird wings. Their fire ripped into the unsuspecting lancers and blasted gaping holes into lightweight metal. The Sagittarian flyers shifted immediately to counter the wave of Carinian drones whipping up at them from below, but their thrusters and guns moved too slow. Dozens splintered in seconds. Machine carcasses tumbled down through the air. Then the autodrones curved over the ridgeline and engaged the oncoming lancers, weaving through screaming flyers with lightning speed. Guns blazed faster than thrusters could dodge or sensors could register.

  Autodrones slid into an upward curve and zoomed back toward the canyon. The Sagittarian machines split, some continuing on toward the dishes on the far bank, some chasing the autodrones into the canyon. The dogfight evolved into a convoluted mess. Lancer swivel guns made no space safe for Maxwell’s drones—except above. As half the autodrones weaved around the canyon, the other half whisked higher and higher, trying to keep the upper ground and swoop down on helpless lancers. But the lancers let only a handful of their own go down from these upward attacks before rising to keep level with the autodrones. The dogfight bifurcated. Crippled or tattered machines fell from the sky, spewing scraps across the hard terrain.

  Maxwell maximized his digital map as one lancer descended, twirling smoke, angling for one of his dishes. Falling fast. He shoved another rocket in his rifle chamber and swiveled around to aim at the kamikaze drone. Fired. Watched as the rocket streamed fifty meters, a hundred. But the lancer fell faster. The rocket burst twenty meters above the dish, but the lancer had already smashed into it, creating an awful, wrenching explosion. Fire and steel melded into one barreling mass. Metal fragments blasted across the landscape. Shards sliced into bodies inside the second trench line. A dozen fighters crumpled onto each other.

  It took a moment to register the loss. The dish had been shattered completely. Suddenly, they were down to five. Maybe not even that.

  Is Dish Four back online yet? Maxwell dispatched privately to Rumaya.

  It took a few seconds for her to respond. Not yet. The Sagittarian ripped it up good. It isn’t communicating with the other dishes.

  So Dish Four wouldn’t be collaborating with the others. It might cover the wrong section of the sky. Or the exact same section as another dish. Or it might fire at random targets. Or it might not fire at all.

  That left four reliable dishes. Not enough to ensure coverage of the safe zone.

  Maxwell snapped open all channels on comm, dispatching to all transapien teams at the same time. Back underground! Everyone get back undergound on the double!

  Transapiens surged out of the trench, cracking mini-rockets up at the handful of low-flying lancers still afloat. The Sagittarian drones flitted around in zigzagging curves to target the vulnerable bodies fleeing for cover. The Upraadi fighters had less ground to cover between their trench and safety, but it caught the lancers’ sensor eyes. A pair of them dove down and swept horizontally across the hundreds of men and women running for cover, sputtering gunfire from all three guns. Rounds showered the rock, tore bodies into ragged, gory chunks. Killing with soulless indifference. Going down the line. Leaving behind a heap of fleshy shreds, sometimes survivors looking in shock at missing limbs.

  It took too long for one of the Carinians to shoot them down. A rocket blast exploded between them, blowing them both apart in the air.

  Maxwell hadn’t even gotten halfway to the carved stone archway leading underground when the sky lit up again. Not the reddish natural light of the atmosphere or the orange radiance of the local sun but a garish, foreign spray of flares, followed by a wave of thunderous explosions. It took less than ten seconds for one of the rods to slam into the ground—somewhere not too far off. Maybe two hundred meters. A tremor ran under Maxwell’s feet, almost strong enough to knock him over.

  Another blurry streak tore through the atmosphere faster than sound could follow, plowed into the palace mount, sent rubble twisting through the air, severed boulders the size of houses, triggered a rockslide down the cliff. Balconies and platforms carved into the precipice were consumed in its wake. Greenhouses beside the river were crushed. The rocky shoreline grew halfway into the river from piling rocks.

  Then Maxwell’s sensors went haywire. A horrendous sound erupted behind him.

  The ground buckled and cracked, and a shockwave launched him into the air. Higher than he thought possible. Further away. Surrounded by slabs of jagged rock bigger than his body. Tumbling and spinning through the air and reaching vainly for something to grab onto. Until his interior alarm blared from falling, falling, falling. Ground expanding fast in the few glimpses he caught of it. Coming so close, so fast. And then—

  The Scavenger

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Orion Arm, just inside the Sol system’s asteroid belt . . .

  As soon as the stars solidified into a steady arrangement and the Fossa whipped into humanity’s old stomping grounds, two things happened.

  First, Strange triggered their planned burn, putting them on a trajectory toward Earth. Then, seconds later, a Terran Confederacy gunship thrust itself after them. It had been hovering close to the gate, waiting. Three stinger drones broke off from the Confed gunship and blasted ahead, closing the distance with the Fossa.

  “About the welcome I expected,” Davin said. He felt his throat tighten and his buttocks clench.

  Once the trajectory adjustment burn ended and weightlessness returned, Sierra unclipped from her restraints behind him and held herself between the pilot and copilot’s seats. Strange chomped hard on her gum, eyes glued to the radar screen.

  “Jellyfish’re haulin’ ass,” she muttered at the three-dimensional rendering of the stingers closing in on them—bulbous bodies perforated with torpedo holes and trailing long, rippled tails.

  “Those things freak me the hell out,” Davin said as their tails splayed into flexible tentacles.

  “I remember seeing those,” Sierra said with a faraway look. “When I came to Earth for pilgrimage. They escorted us from the gate to Earth. Probably twenty or thirty of them.”


  “Wonder if we’re lucky or unlucky to only have three,” Strange mused.

  The video message request icon flashed on the copilot’s screen. “We’re about to find out,” Davin said, then cleared his throat and opened the line. A young Mandarin woman with a neat bob haircut appeared on the screen. She wore a high-collared uniform bearing a Confed symbol pin. Her jawbones protruded inside her cheeks, and her eyes stared with practiced distrust. Since the officer didn’t speak, Davin decided to fill the uncomfortable silence.

  “I’m the captain of the HCC Fossa. My name is Davin. We are inbound to the South Levant Spaceport on Earth.”

  “State your business on Earth, Mister Davin . . . ?”

  “De la Fossa,” Davin replied. “You can just call me Davin.”

  “That is your last name?” the Confed officer asked. “‘De la Fossa?’”

  “That’s what I go by,” Davin said. “We’re here for business purposes.”

  The stinger drones had caught up to the Fossa and matched its speed. They drifted closer, tentacles out, already grasping for the Orionite clipper’s hull.

  “Please be more specific, Mister de la Fossa.”

  “We’re here to see Ernesto Kyger from XM Industries,” Davin said. “Their office is in the Intrasolar District of Dubai.”

  “Please stand by.” The officer’s face was replaced by a slow-spinning Confed symbol.

  Meanwhile, the magnetic tips of stinger tentacles thunked against the Fossa’s hull, one by one, until the jellyfish cords held them from every angle. Attached at probably eighteen places. Davin was too nervous to count. Palms sweaty and legs jittery and mind flitting around like an aggressively caffeinated butterfly.

  He swallowed and brushed his fingers through his hair—longer than he remembered. The check was taking a while.

  “Come on, Ernie,” he murmured. “Come through for me.”

  At the last nexus, he’d sent a message ahead to his old mentor and sex guru, asking for a favor. Another favor. Davin figured from all the commotion in the news about the fighting in Sagittarius, the Confed would be on high alert. Seemed like they were always on high alert about something or another, which is why Davin usually kept his distance from the Sol system. He only knew one solitary soul on the Pale Blue Dot, and that was Ernie Kyger the Sex Tiger. Davin hadn’t seen him in years, since Ernie left his clients at Golding in the capable hands of Jimmy Powers to take a job at XM Industries on Earth—an intrasolar import-export company. Jumped quite a few rungs on the ladder. Davin hoped the guy wasn’t too good for him now.

  “Who’s that?” Sierra asked from behind. “Ernesto Kyger.”

  “Old friend of mine,” Davin said. “Used to do business with him.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Machine parts, ship parts, engine parts.” He shrugged, welcoming the distraction. “Anything and everything really. As long as it was valuable enough for his time.”

  “He found buyers for our scrap,” Strange clarified.

  Sierra tipped her head back in comprehension. “Ah. Got it.”

  The waiting grew more painful every second. They were already on a swift path to Earth, traveling at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. But the stingers could stop that at any time. They could jolt the Fossa into submission with concentrated mini-EMP bursts through their tentacles. Cripple the ship and usher it into Martian or lunar orbit, where Davin would be at their mercy. He hoped the fact he had come this far showed the Terrans he wasn’t a threat. But the Confed had been hardened through its constant struggle against every form of terrorist group known to mankind. They had to be suspicious of everyone, especially those from outside their territory.

  To them, it must have looked odd—an old, deep-Orionite clipper without any Confed ID signal careening into the inner system and burning a path straight to Earth. If Davin were an anti-terrorist watchman, that would trigger something.

  The Mandarin officer came back on the screen, even colder this time. “Mister de la Fossa, we have no documents recorded for your arrival. Mister Ernesto Kyger has not filed any temporary business forms for you, nor has your ship been registered for orbital or spaceport parking. We have nothing. Let me ask you again: What is your business in the Sol system? If you don’t give me a straight answer this time, I’ll have to immobilize you.”

  She sounded as if she hoped Davin would lie.

  Davin forced his dry mouth to swallow. “Could you please ping Ernie—Ernesto’s office? He can verify my business on Earth. I’m here for strictly legal, commercial purposes. Ernesto can verify that.”

  He hoped.

  The officer frowned in annoyance. Protocol must have forced her to check Davin’s alibi before giving him the shock treatment. “Please stand by.” She disappeared, and the Confed symbol returned.

  Strange sank back in her seat. “Well, folks, we’re gonna be waiting awhile. If they gotta shoot a message to Earth and wait for Earth to shoot one back to us, we’re looking at probably an hour of radio silence.”

  Davin let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.

  “What’s your real name?” Sierra asked.

  “What?” Davin asked.

  “Your surname,” she clarified. “What’s your real surname?”

  “‘Surname?’” He laughed. “It’s like you came straight from Victorian England.”

  Sierra rolled her eyes. “Come on, don’t act like you’ve never heard the term before. You’re not that much of a barbarian, are you?”

  Strange’s face lit up. “Ohhh! About time somebody called him out.”

  Davin felt his cheeks flush. “Alright, Strange. Simmer down. Let’s be adults.”

  The pilot held up open hands. “Wha—? You’re the one who doesn’t know what surname means.”

  “Of course I know what it means!” Davin exclaimed, defensively yet unable to suppress a grin. “Don’t insult me!”

  “Alright, last name,” Sierra said teasingly. “How about that? You know what that means, right?”

  Davin crossed his arms, still on edge somewhere deep down but enjoying the pleasant diversion. “Go ahead. Doggy pile on Davin. It’ll make you two feel better about yourselves.”

  Strange popped her feet onto the side of the dashboard. “I do feel better about myself. I feel better about myself every time you talk, Cap.”

  “Your cut of the next haul just went down by five percent,” Davin shot back.

  “That’s fine. I’ll just do some barrel rolls when you’re asleep. Waste some fuel on a joyride to make up for it.”

  “But seriously,” Sierra said. “I’m curious.”

  Davin shrugged. “Eh. It’s a long story.”

  Strange recoiled. “Pssh. No it’s not, Cap.” She twisted in her seat to look at Sierra. “He doesn’t want to go by his dad’s last name, and his mom’s last name has the word ‘dick’ in it.”

  “What?” Sierra said with a light giggle. “What’s his mother’s last name?”

  The copilot’s screen flashed back to the officer. Davin let out a breath—saved by the bell.

  “Mister de la Fossa.” Her face had loosened to a state of mere mild annoyance. “Just moments ago, we received confirmation of your temporary business documentation and spaceport parking registration. Your friend has good timing.” She flashed the thinnest of smiles. “Welcome to Sol.”

  The connection cut off. Davin felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He melted into his seat as a wave of sweet relief tingled through his skin. A series of pops vibrated the hull as the stinger tentacles detached. On the rendering screen, Davin watched as the cords drew back together into tails and the stingers drifted away, dissolving into the black abyss.

  The cockpit stayed quiet for a while.

  Sierra stirred. “So . . . your mother’s last name?”

  The Champion

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Sagittarius Arm, near Upraad . . .

  Kastor brooded in the champion’s seat of the Aegis�
�s bridge. In the deep, black distance out the windshield, three-quarters of Upraad glowed iron red and shadowed a dozen pellets in its orbit. A zoomed-in section of the smartglass showed tiny flashes flickering at one point of the planet. Bombardment.

  Velasco’s armada had arrived ahead of him.

  Inside the bridge, between the Aegis’s helmsmen and technicians, the severe visage of the Grand Lumis spoke in a holo display, head tilted down and eyes piercing like diamond-tipped drills, boring straight into Kastor’s heart.

  “If she lives to be crowned Queen Matriarch . . . I will name you my heir. But if she dies . . . If she dies, you will no longer have a place in my employ.”

  The hologram blinked out, leaving Zantorian’s icy glare imprinted in Kastor’s mind. Silence surrounded him, suffocated him. Eyes watched him from every angle, waiting for orders. Off to the side, a young communications officer stood wearing an intense expression.

  “Master Champion, the Cygnus has sent us orders to stand down! Do not interfere.”

  Kastor gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t matter what Swan says. Our orders come straight from the Grand Lumis.”

  At the central nav panel, Commodore Vanora glared in defiance. “Lord Velasco is acting within his legal rights. We’d be fools to get in his way.”

  Kastor’s fist clenched. “He wouldn’t fire on the Aegis, on the champion of his lumis.”

  “Don’t test him, Kastor,” Vanora warned. “He’s gone this far.”

  Kastor’s gaze swerved back to the windshield and the scene beyond. His life hung in the balance of that glowing orb. That pathetic rock. That foolhardy half-commoner and the half-sister with a soft spot for him. But Kastor had no time to dwell on such things.

  “Prepare for full burn,” he commanded. “Arcing pattern. I want to curve into them as fast as our engines will take us. All personnel prep for combat. Drop teams, get to the landers and prepare for launch. No, not landers. Husks. Get in the husks. We’ll slip through their fingers like sand.”